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CHAPTER ONE
IF THE HEAVY sigh eht-year-old son was any indication, Holly Ca summer
“Can’t I please wait for you at home?” Simon’s plea fell on deaf “mom” ears as he turned desperate brown eyes on her The clasped hands were a nice touch “I promise I’ll stay off the computer”
“Depends if you’re ready to tell ed all their file names” Holly cleared the last table from the Butterfly Diner’s breakfast rush, balanced plates and coffee cups like an Oly “Are you?”
“No” The surly ed with a hint of surrender Sie stool in front of the steel-and-Formica counter and knocked his colored pencils to the white tile floor
“Sorry, kiddo,” Holly said “Until I feel I can trust you again, you’re stuck withsummer
“How about I tell you how I did it instead?” Simon offered
As te look
“It orth a shot” Simon’s mischievous expression had its usual effect and pulled free the s delinquent tendencies, there were times she loved her kid so much she ached
“How about you share that inforrandpa?” Holly wiped down the table and straightened the condiive hi to think about now that he’s about to retire”
Retire As if her father had been given a choice Jake Gordon was being forced out of his job as town sheriff—a job he’d held for the past thirty years—adding another burden to Holly’s shoulders
The statistics on what early retire, which hy Holly was determined to make her father feel useful Maybe then she could rid herself of the worry that Jake would slide into old age as effortlessly as falling asleep
Her father’s situation was one of the es the new ned on Aside from the plans to build a new butterfly sanctuary to attract visitors, Holly wasn’t looking forward toimplemented It was only a matter of time before everyone else knehat she’d learned the hard way: changeworse
She took a deep breath and tried to loosen the knots in her chest The last tio, when the California Highway Patrol officer had knocked on her door to tell her Gray had died in a car accident
The pang of grief struck first, followed by bittersweet h-school sweetheart She missed Gray, the boy she’d loved; theOr the secrets Or his lies Her stomach pitched like an abandoned trawler at sea She especially didn’t miss the lies
Was that when her proble to juggle pretty well She’d had to Gray had beco day She’d finally stopped depending on hi
She continued wiping down the booths; it was never too early to gear up for the coe, but finding the acy—on track within the guidelines of the mayor’s proposed prosperity plan could prove problematic even for someone as self-sufficient as Holly Sure, thefor Si on top of a tooth-shattering cake And, of course, there was herher troublesummer